Implementation of Real-time Network Extension on Embedded Linux

Linux over the past few years has gained in popularity as the operating system for embedded networking equipment. Its reliability, low cost and undisputed networking capabilities made it one of the most popular choices for the networking devices. But traditional software network interfaces in Linux do not deliver satisfactory real-time performance. Hence alternative efficient real-time interfaces are required in network monitoring, distributed systems, real-time networking and remote data acquisition applications. So it is necessary to modify the original Linux to meet the real-time requirement. This paper describes the implementation of real-time network extension based on embedded Linux. Compared with different solution of achieving real-tine ability on Linux system, Xenomai and Rtnet have been chosen in our system. Finally, the real-time performance test has been carried out on embedded Linux network system. The test results indicate that, through applying Xenomai and Rtnet on embedded Linux, the hard real-time requirement can be met in our system.